This invention relates generally to the art of fluid sprinkling and more particularly to the manufacture of snow with elongated pipe-type snow making towers.
The present invention pertains to improvements over the inventor's inventions disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,004,151 and 6,032,872. A suitable discussion giving a major portion of the prior art background of the present invention is presented in these patents and is accordingly incorporated herein by reference.
Generally, the former inventions for artificially producing snow as disclosed in these two patent references consist of a method and apparatus for making snow through the use of snow towers wherein water is supplied under pressure to a point of discharge above ground level and adjacent the top end of the tower where it is discharged through a first water nozzle into the ambient freezing atmosphere in the form of a spray. The spray is preferably a high velocity spray of discrete water particles, sometimes referred to as a fine water spray.
Air is supplied independently under pressure to a second point of discharge at the top of the snow tower and there discharged through an orifice to form a jet stream or a thin air stream which is directed into the aforesaid water spray thereby forming a plume of atomized or nucleated water. This atomized water forms seed crystals in the freezing atmosphere, and through the dwell time of the long fall from the top of the tower to the ground, forms snow.
The inventor has discovered that the finer that the water spray is nucleated or atomized in order to form this plume, the greater is the quality of the snow and the greater is the possibility of making snow in warmer subfreezing conditions, and one aspect of the present invention is directed to this end.
Another aspect of the present invention is directed toward the invention disclosed in the inventor's U.S. Pat. No. 6,032,872 wherein instead of externally mixing the air and water at the top of the tower, a portion of the air and water under pressure are internally mixed at the upper end of the tower before a discharge into the subfreezing atmosphere. This system has advantages as outlined in the aforementioned patent disclosure.
However, it has been discovered that if this latter mentioned system is utilized in a tilted or slanted position for the snow tower, as is usually the case, water tends to back down the terminal upper end of the air pipe at the top of the tower. It is another object of the present invention to eliminate this problem.